What is this — a naughty sex odyssey as absurdist art?  Or a non-PC slice of sleazy art film exploitation? Either way it’s a (minor) Polanski masterpiece of direction, influenced by the Italian setting.  Is this what turns Polanski on?  The entire excercise is a Kafka comedy of erotic discomfort. What? Blu-ray Severin 1972 /…

Robert Wagner as a social climbing psycho killer?  I knew it!  ‘Mr. CinemaScope Smile’ grins only once or twice in this movie, and then only to fool an unsuspecting woman. A great cast brings tension to Ira Levin’s outrageous tale of murder. Joanne Woodward has a powerful role, but this time out my heart throbs…

A treasure trove of pirate questions awaits you landlubbers in this week’s TFH Quiz! Be sure to click submit for your score!

Stand back, watch the fur fly and don’t forget to duck — this is surely the most psychologically toxic play ever adapted for film. The legends Liz and Dick are terrific, and Mike Nichols conquers the screen in his first job of direction. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1966 / B&W…

What’s contemporary Europe got that we ain’t got? Powerful, serious filmmaking like that by Christian Petzold, starring the impressive Nina Hoss. Their sixth collaboration is a loaded narrative that takes some pretty wild narrative themes — plastic surgery, hidden identities — and spins them in a suspenseful new direction. Phoenix Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 809…

The dirty book of the ’60s became an all-star dirty movie with Brando, Burton, Starr, Coburn, Matthau, Astin, Aznavour and Huston all wanting a taste of the Swedish nymphet Ewa Aulin. Camerawork by Rotunno, designs by Dean Tavoularis, effects by Doug Trumbull — and the best material is Marlon Brando making goofy faces as a…

It’s a different Bogart — a character performance in a Nicholas Ray noir about distrust anxiety in romance. Gloria Grahame is the independent woman who must withhold her commitment… until a murder can be sorted out. Which will crack first, the murder case or the relationship? In A Lonely Place Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 810…

An amazing talent gone way too soon, Janis Joplin is more than her boozy, brash public image. This bio docu has the personal background and the insights of those her knew, plus the Texas and San Francisco context in the Rock breakout of the late 1960s. Janis: Little Girl Blue DVD Filmrise / MVD 2015…

America’s favorite gadfly has made something worth watching — a European tour of Great Ideas that American would do well to steal outright — even if many of those ideas originated here. Not that anyone will listen, but Hail the Conquering Hero just the same. Where to Invade Next Blu-ray Anchor Bay 2015 / Color…

One of the best-remembered dramas of the ’70s gives us controversial actresses, a lavish production and a story by the even more controversial Lillian Hellman. Director Fred Zinnemann makes it into a suspenseful, deeply affecting experience. Julia Blu-ray Twilight Time Limited Edition 1977 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 118 min. / Ship Date April…

This week TFH takes a look at the fine art of fine artist bio-pics! Be sure to click submit for your score!

These are the Eyes that Satirize! Everybody’s seen their imagery but few know the story of these anonymous performance artists and their avant-garde music. Their highly creative songs and videos satirize the commercialization of art and music, and they’ve chosen a real ‘you’ll never get rich’ way to stay clear of the commercial undertow. Theory…

The irrepressible Sam Fuller fashions a crime thriller for German TV with his expected eccentricity: old-fashioned hardboiled scripting, freeform direction and bits of graffiti from the French New Wave. Christa Lang is the femme fatale and Glenn Corbett is the twofisted American hero, whose name is NOT Griff. And yes, a pigeon does bite the…

Film directors trying to express themselves in East Germany had a tough row to hoe, yet quite a few of them dared to stray beyond the confines of social realism. The DEFA Film Library has two new releases from 1966 that were banned and shelved before they could be finished — and weren’t seen until…

I live in Los Angeles, and my residency here means that a lot of great film programming– revival screenings, advance looks at upcoming releases and vital, fascinating glimpses at unheralded, unexpected cinema from around the world—is available to me on a week-by-week basis. But I’ve never been to Cannes. Toronto, Tribeca, New York, Venice, Berlin,…

I don’t know if The Huntsman: Winter’s War, the big, loud (except when its twin villainesses get all whispery with evil portent) prequel/sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman that nobody was clamoring for, will end up being the year’s worst movie. But in my book this by-the-numbers CGI-encrusted wreck certainly stands a good chance of being the year’s most…

It’s a genuine forgotten gem: American student Jean Seberg’s five-year adventure in Paris is mostly a period of romantic frustration. Irwin Shaw and Robert Parrish’s look at the problems of an independent woman is remarkably insightful; the chronically miscast and underused Ms. Seberg is luminous. In the French Style Blu-ray Twilight Time Limited Edition 1963…

Franceso Rosi’s warm, thoughtful tale sees a family gathering observe grievous modern problems — after so much violence in Italian politics people are still looking for humanistic solutions. Philippe Noiret heads a great cast (with Charles Vanel) in this mellow reflection on ‘the things of life.’ Three Brothers Region B Blu-ray + PAL DVD Arrow…

Is satire obsolete? Our appalling present political reality has surpassed some of the wildest jokes in director Joe Dante’s ‘exaggerated, outrageous’ 1997 cable movie. An immigration squabble snowballs until a renegade state governor closes his border and threatens to secede from the Union. It’s a ‘political idiocy’ version of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad…

This is one of Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor’s best, written and directed by the classy MGM team of director Vincente Minnelli and writers Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett. It inspired a decade’s worth of TV family sitcoms and set the benchmark for weddings for generations. Great fun and solid sentiment without mugging or exaggeration….

“Sorry, I just slashed my wrists.” “Well, tape ’em!”  This is the aftermath of the ’60s protest movement. Ivan Passer’s riveting murder mystery of flakes and losers in sun-drenched, guilty Santa Barbara expresses the rage of radicals faced with the growing class divide, and the arrogance of the wealthy. Cutter’s Way Blu-ray Twilight Time Limited…

Guns! Guns! Guns! John Milius’ rootin’ tootin’ bio of the most famous of the ’30s bandits has plenty of good things to its credit, especially its terrific, funny cast, topped by the unlikely star Warren Oates. The battles between Dillinger’s team of all-star bank robbers and Ben Johnson’s G-Man aren’t neglected, as Milius savors every…

A lot of water, legal and otherwise, has passed under the bridge since Paul Reubens last donned the signature crisply tailored gray suit and red bow tie of his indisputably great comic creation, Pee-wee Herman, for a feature-length comedy. His previous Pee-wee feature, Big Top Pee-wee, debuted during the summer of 1988, 28 years ago,…

Just a quick head-up: For those of you in the Los Angeles area, next weekend, April 22-24, marks the occasion for the second annual Artemis Women in Action Film Festival, playing at the newly refurbished Ahrya Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills. This festival, a labor of love project from athlete-actress Melanie Wise and writer-producers…

This noir hits with the force of a blast furnace — Cy Endfield’s wrenching tale of social neglect and injustice will tie your stomach in knots. Sound like fun? An unemployed man turns to crime and reaps a whirlwind of disproportionate retribution. It’s surely the most powerful of all filmic accusations thrown at the American…

Take a look at the roots of American campaign image consciousness, and the then-new techniques of cinéma vérité to bring a new ‘reality’ for film documentaries. Four groundbreaking films cover the Kennedy-Humphrey presidential primary, and put us in the Oval Office for a showdown against Alabama governor George Wallace. The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew…